NOW & FOREVER
Chapter Ten
The next morning, at school, Rose tried to
seek Jack out. They were in several of the same classes, so it shouldn’t have
been difficult, but Jack made a point of arriving in class at the last minute
and leaving as soon as the bell rang, giving her no chance to talk to him. In
addition, he ignored everyone but the teacher, causing his fellow students to
make fun of him even more.
At lunch, Rose saw him sitting alone, but by
the time she had made an excuse to leave her friends and go to him, he had
gotten up to leave, and when she tried to follow him, he disappeared into the
boys’ bathroom, where she couldn’t follow.
Several of Rose’s friends had watched her
attempts to talk to him with interest. Finally, Gary commented, smirking,
"Slumming, Rose?"
"What?"
"I asked if you were slumming. Chasing
that…what was his name again?"
"His name is Jack. And I wasn’t chasing
him."
"Sure you weren’t," one of the
girls, Amanda, said teasingly. "You’ve only been trying to talk to him all
day."
"Well…well…" Rose sputtered.
"Of course I want to talk to him. He’s…he’s my friend."
"He sure doesn’t act like your friend."
Gary laughed, slapping his leg as Rose’s face turned red with embarrassment.
"It looks like he doesn’t want to be around you. I mean, he went into that
smelly restroom to get away from you."
"Maybe he just likes it in there,"
Amanda remarked, bringing more hoots of laughter from the group.
"Shut up!" Rose snapped, more
harshly than she had intended.
More laughter. "Ooh…Rose has a crush on
him," Rose’s friend Veronica teased her.
"I do not!"
"Oh, don’t be embarrassed, Rose,"
Veronica told her. "He is good-looking."
"Hey!" Gary, who was Veronica’s
boyfriend, glared at her, not appreciating the remark.
"Don’t worry, love. You’re much better
looking than him," Veronica soothed, trying not to cause trouble. He just
pushed her away, sitting and eating his lunch in sullen silence.
Veronica rolled her eyes and turned to Rose.
"Seriously, Rose, I can understand why you have a crush on him…but he’s
not one of us, you know. He’ll never be accepted. And if you go after
him…well…you know how people can be."
"Yes, I know how people can be."
Rose knew all too well. Follow society’s dictates and toe the line, or you were
an outcast. Her society was very closed, very exclusive, and someone like Jack
would never fit in, even if he had more money than any of them. They were all
old money, with generations of wealth behind them, and an impoverished
foreigner was someone to be treated with disdain at best, and more often with
hostility—when they bothered to acknowledge such people at all. Even Rose, with
all of her money and her good name, did not always fit in, although she tried
to hide this fact, wanting desperately to fit in somewhere, even if it was into
such a narrow-minded, narrow-focused group. She didn’t even know if other
groups would accept her—members of high society were regarded with suspicion
and envy by those not so blessed…or cursed, depending upon how one looked at
it.
The bell rang then, sending them scattering
to their classes. Rose hurried away, but her mind was on Jack the whole time,
wishing that she knew why he was so angry.
*****
It wasn’t until after school that Rose
finally caught up to Jack. He was rushing down the hall, heading for the bus,
when she turned and saw him heading in her direction. Thinking quickly, she darted
into his path, almost colliding with him.
"Excuse me," he mumbled, trying to
go around her.
"Jack, wait!"
"I have to get to the bus before it
leaves without me."
"I’ll have my chauffeur give you a ride
home."
"No, thank you. The bus is fine."
Rose wasn’t deterred, though. Running to keep
up with him, she got in his way just as rounded a corner, making him stumble
slightly and drop his armload of books and papers.
"Dammit, Rose!" he snapped,
stopping to pick up the dropped items. "It’s a long walk home, you
know."
"I said I’d give you a ride."
Rose’s voice was frosty.
"And I said no."
"What is your problem?" Rose
demanded, collecting a handful of papers and stuffing them into a folder.
"Why are you avoiding me? What did I ever do to you?"
"Just go home, Rose. You wouldn’t want
your friends to see you talking to me."
Rose’s temper snapped. "I’m through
being polite, Goddammit!" Before he could react, she pushed him against
the wall and got in his face, her high-heeled shoes making her almost as tall
as him.
"Rose…" There was a warning note in
Jack’s voice.
"No! I thought we were getting along
just fine, and then all of a sudden you started acting like a complete…jerk!
Jack, why are you so angry with me?"